


Warm

by m4xw3ll



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 16:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18594721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m4xw3ll/pseuds/m4xw3ll
Summary: Set after the end of AC3.Desmond finds himself in a familiar setting, being greeted by a familiar face. But something doesn't feel right.





	Warm

Desmond woke to a dull ache in his right arm and something that felt too much like sand in his t-shirt to be comfortable. He blinked slowly and his left hand came up to rub against his arm to make the pain go away as he still wasn't fully sure where he was. Then there was light. Not bright and flashing, although he could make out a sun and looked right into it. He sat up slowly. The pain wouldn't go away fully, but it was faint enough to ignore it. Lucy had probably sent him flying in one of their training sessions again. Great. How was he supposed to get better when he couldn't move?

There wasn't much except for that sun. Desmond wasn't even sure he could dub that thing 'sun' since it wasn't as bright as he remembered. Sure, there were shadows and everything, but it all seemed so dull. He sat up in the sand and tried to shake it from his t-shirt, rocks and a small heightening with black stones on it next to him. It seemed familiar, except for some big gate-like … things. He had never been sure what to call them and gates seemed not quite right, but it was the closest to right he could imagine. The sky wasn't as blue as it should be and it looked like a dulled version of a world, a place he couldn't remember. But then he saw a figure, someone who wore the world's colors brighter than the rest of the environment, and he remembered.

"Took you long enough," Clay said and placed his arms on his knees, watching him from the top of a nearby rock. "Thought you would go away without saying hello. We're old pals after all, aren't we?"

Clay got up and walked over slowly, completely disregarding the fact that Desmond had his hands clenched to fists and was about to hit him. "I thought the island was destroyed," he accused the other man. "You were deleted! Dead!" It was like listening to Rebecca going on and on about some updates and improvements for 'Baby'. Desmond always had fled the room as soon as humanly possible because her ramblings had given him a headache and he didn't understand a thing. He usually had found Shaun and Lucy with coffee ready and a timer set to the approximate end of Becca's tirade.

"I was." Clay brought him back from that memory, one that almost left Desmond smiling. Unless, well, he remembered he was in the Black Room once more. Clay held up his arms as if he wanted to embrace the world and continued. "All of it had been deleted. But this hadn't." He then stabbed Desmond's forehead with his index finger and grinned for a second.

"So, you're saying this is all in my mind?" Somehow, Desmond wasn't surprised. Far from it, actually. The anger slowly faded and left room for confusion. "Man, that's fucked up," and didn't that describe everything since his abduction by Abstergo perfectly, huh? Clay offered him a hand and yanked him up as soon as Desmond grabbed it.

"You're telling me?" he asked and raised his eyebrows. "I didn't ask to be in your head. Couldn't it have been – you know, family? Your dad maybe? Lucy … or were you too intimidated to hook up with her?"

"I'd rather not have my brain bruised," Desmond bluntly told him. "And if you ask about Shaun or Becs – don't. Just … don't. I don't know what happened but if this is the end, I'd rather go out with some dignity and at least a little sanity left."

They started to walk slowly around and Desmond noticed that the Black Room hadn't changed for a bit except for the gates. Like he never left it. He didn't even freak out about it any more, because obviously his brain had now melted for good and his dad found it a great idea to put him inside the Animus again. Did he seriously think that to be the solution of all his problems? Well, this time it obviously hadn't worked or his mind was projecting this image into the Animus or something similar Rebecca would explain with too long words and too wild gestures once he was conscious again. If that ever happened. Because, well, if Clay was right and this was all in his head, the chances of him ever coming back to the real world were around zero.

"You don't have any idea, do you?" Clay asked him and stopped to kick a pebble in the general direction of the water. Desmond watched it fly and when he looked down again, it had been replaced with a similar one. He wouldn't even start questioning this, he was long past that point. In a world as fucked up as his, it probably made sense somehow.

Which still didn't answer Clay's question. Desmond shrugged. "Guess I fried my brain for good this time," he answered eventually.

"Not completely wrong," Clay grinned briefly and then yanked his hands into his pockets and looked away. He sighed. "Going by the smell when you arrived, you clearly fried something. However, your brain's fine. You wouldn't be here without it. I wouldn't."

"Right," Desmond agreed as he remembered Clay's earlier words. "Hallucination, mind-fuck, something like that, huh? But what are you doing here? I mean – my head and all. Who'd you bribe for visitation rights?"

"I'd rather have someone bail me out of here. I can see everything you ever did. That blonde chick you once fucked on the counter of that bar? She was sick." Clay rubbed his head with one hand, obviously more than a little disturbed by that particular memory. It really had been a rough night.

Desmond couldn't help but laugh. It was sharp and short and he patted Clay on the shoulder, noticing how warm he was despite everything. "I know what you mean."

They continued walking around the island. It was a short walk and although Desmond didn't really have a sense of time in here, it couldn't have taken them more than a few minutes until they were almost at the start again. "You still have no idea what happened, right?" Clay suddenly asked and stopped. "What all of this means for you, I mean." He let himself drop onto one of those rocks again and watched Desmond.

Desmond didn't have any idea how to answer that. Sure, his brain obviously melted or something and someone had decided to fuck him over again – although for what reason, he had no idea. But it had been like this from the start. Vidic had given him the option to stay conscious and help them, or be put into a coma. Lucy had asked him to help the Assassins, or … well, to be on the run again and probably die in a couple of days. Minerva, Juno and Jupiter had told him what to do, where to go, what to look for. Nothing had been his own decision. Except for …

Well, except for when he could have let the world ended.

"No," Desmond breathed as the memories came back; the dull ache in his arm worsened, letting him know just what he had been missing since he had woken up. His heart sank into his boots. "No … I mean, yes. I – I remember, I guess." He looked down and his arm and it was dark, seemingly burnt. Now he could smell it, too. Burnt flesh on the arm he had touched the pedestal with. Disgusting.

He let himself fall onto the sand near Clay and shook his head, trying not to curl into a ball and wait for it all to finally be over. How could he forget a thing like that? It wasn't like he would deem his death memorable, but at least he himself should remember such a detail. Somehow, he wasn't as crushed by that fact as he ever imagined himself to be. He still cupped his face in his hands as he let that information sink in. His thoughts of Lucy, Rebecca and Shaun came back, along with the fact that he would never hear Rebecca's techno speak again, that Shaun would never ask him to taste the mana again. Fuck, he'd never be insulted by his dad again. Never visit his mom. That trip they were planning once the world was saved – gone. Everything was just … gone.

"Are you freaking out?" Clay wanted to know.

Desmond had no idea, so he just shrugged. He guessed that this was his chance to freak out. He had any right to do so. But he just felt … resigned, he guessed. So this was the end. He looked up and took in his surroundings. "I've always imagined it to be something different," he then admitted. "Something more … I don't know. Spectacular?"

"Killing yourself isn't spectacular, even if you save the world, trust me."

He guessed Clay was right. It just wasn't at all what he had expected. And it would probably take some time to get used to it. His last goodbyes were on a cellphone, for god's sake. But then again, he didn't understand fully just what the hell was going on. So Desmond looked up again. "Why are you here?" he wanted to know.

"How should I know?" Clay asked back. "It's your mind after all. I don't know more about it than you do."

Sure, Desmond had always taken an interest in Subject 16, had always wanted to know who he was, what had happened and how it all had ended. He had helped them so much, not with their actual mission maybe, but Desmond had really appreciated the hints at their past, how they were born, how it all came together in the end. And even if Clay couldn't have been considered a living human being, during his time in that coma, he had been the most helpful person in the world. Desmond guessed that he had never gotten over the fact Clay had sacrificed himself to keep him going. But he always had liked him, strange and unpredictable as he was.

"You need to go sometime," Clay told him after a while. He looked into the sky and seemed to focus something far away only he could see. "Technically, you're dead. There's no roaming around in this Black Room any more."

"Are you coming with me?" Desmond asked him. As much as he had accepted his fate when he saw Minerva and Juno talking, as afraid was he now. Because that meant ending it all, leaving it all behind for an unknown future he could never be part of. God, he would miss so many things, even Shaun's coffee.

Clay held out a hand. He was still sat on his stone and it was more like a gesture signalizing Desmond that he wasn't alone than anything else. The assassin gladly took it. Despite everything, Clay's hand was warm and soft to the touch and calmed him down almost immediately. It was like his anchor, although that metaphor probably was stupid.

"You know," Desmond said after a few seconds, "we've never introduced ourselves properly." And what a tacky thought was that, huh? Still, he looked at Clay and even managed a small smile. "I'm Desmond Miles and I fucked my life up as much as possible."

When Clay laughed, it sounded almost sincere and definitely didn't leave a warm feeling in Desmond's stomach. "Clay Kaczmarek. I pretty much did the same." He stood and pulled up Desmond with him. He never let go of his hand. "You ready?"

"Not really, no."

Clay studied him for a while. Desmond didn't know what he was looking for or if he found it, but in the end, it didn't matter. He held onto Clay's hand as he slowly felt his reality slipping. Like the bleeding effect, only that there was no memory of a long-dead ancestor awaiting him; only darkness.

Desmond looked around once more and then hugged Clay. He had done the same a while ago, although the reason for this gesture now had changed. Because the other man was warm, real, at least for now and Desmond wanted to hold onto that for as long as possible. He felt arms around himself after a few seconds and buried his face in Clay's shoulder, slowly stroking his back and making sure he was with him. And Clay never let go. Desmond could feel him kiss his temple and that was all he needed to relax.

Clay had told him to find him in the darkness. It seemed like a lifetime ago now, but he remembered those words as if it had been yesterday. And when Desmond looked up, he saw Clay's face right in front of him, his expression sad and tired and exhausted and all he wanted to do was make it better for them. Easier. So he kissed Clay. Long and slow and really thoroughly. And what could be a better way to end this?

"Goodbye world," he heard Clay whisper as they faded.


End file.
